The other day I had the chance to meet the wonderful Marti Spiegelman of the Leading from Being Podcast. We’ll be doing a podcast in August, so watch this space! Marti was talking about how we’ve been taught to use only a small part of our brains; that we’ve switched off the 90% of our mind capable of understanding complex systems. There is a phrase I’ve started using regularly, which is rewilding your mind. It means restoring the parts of your thought processes that enable you to make wiser decisions. It is absolutely critical and central to everything we’re about to do to for humanity’s survival in the next 100 years.
Disappointing reefs in the coral centre of the universe
In this brief note I’m going to recount an example that I use on my expeditions.
I take people to the coral triangle. The ecosystemHow ecosystems function An ecosystem is a community of lifeforms that interact in such an optimal way that how ecosystems function best, is when all components (including humans and other animals) can persist and live alongside each other for the longest time possible. Ecosystems are fuelled by the energy created by plants (primary producers) that convert the Sun's heat energy More here is so complex the human brain cannot comprehend. The only way to appreciate this is to immerse oneself and go along with the ride. Try to understand it and you will become inherently confused … which is what happens when most people first visit. It’s symbolic of what Marti was talking about.
In the first few days of a trip, two things commonly happen.
First, we’ll visit a site that’s really beautiful and relates to a common world view of coral reef. It’s the type of picture-postcard coral reef we’re used to. The next day we go somewhere equally remarkable that looks different and the rhetoric begins.
‘Is there anywhere more like yesterday?’, I get asked, or ‘This reef isn’t as nice as the last one is it?’
Usually the reefs that look a little less ‘typical’ host the weirdest creatures and are more diverse. We’re just disconnected from that world.
My answer is always the same. ‘We’re are at the centre of the coral universe’, I say, ‘there is nowhere in the known universe better than the places we are visiting … each site is uniquely different and this adds up to an unfathomable diversity that Earth has had before, in its 4.5 billion year history.’
Confusing our own minds
Confronted with something that is literally the pinnacle of evolution, a place with unbroken speciation over 25 million years old, it seems strange to think that people can disappoint themselves. The reason is simple though. They’re using the part of their brain that tries to make sense of everything and they are confusing their own world view with a far more special reality.
‘Understanding makes the mind lazy’, as Penelope Fitzgerald says in The Bookshop.
What people thought they understood they begin to realise they don’t. Most of us grow up in a world where we’re told we know everything, or can find out by asking someone else. When you suddenly realise that’s impossible, it’s quite confronting. Especially for adults and leaders who might have spent their lives being told they have to be the cleverest person in the room in order to make decisions.
The funny thing is, in circumstances when that culture fails us, our instinct is to complain to someone or blame the world arond us. Even though we can’t possibly articulate what’s wrong.
The ubiquitous Charismatic Oomperla
Which brings me to the Charismatic Oomperla and the second thing that happens. The Charismatic Oomperla is a common fish. It’s so common in fact, that almost everyone brings me a photo of one to identify on the first day.
‘What’s this fish?’, they ask, referring to the photo they took on a snorkel.
‘It’s a Charismatic Oomperla’, I respond … and pause … then add ‘it isn’t though’. During the look of confusion I will add … ‘I actually don’t know what it is and I’ve done my best not to find out.’
The truth is, over the years I’ve learnt to identify quite a few fish but that’s happened via a different brain pathway. Ironically, this is the pathway that enables a more skillful and rewarding learning.
‘If I told you it’s real name, would you remember that tomorrow?’, I ask.
‘Probably not’, is usually the response.
‘Exactly’, I say. ‘So maybe it’s not the right question’. ‘Instead’, I ask ‘did you notice what it was doing?’
For the most part people don’t think about that at first. We’re conditioned to wanting to know a single linear fact – a name – and in our haste to get a photo to ask someone else that question, our brains become lazy. In that single instance we deny ourselves the chance to experience the dazzling sensation of using the rest of our mind and learning something quite new about ourselves.
When answers reveal themselves
In possibly one of the most important conservationWhy is animal conservation important? Animal conservation is important, because animals are the only mechanism to create biodiversity, which is the mechanism that creates a habitable planet for humans. Without animals, the energy from today’s plants (algae, trees, flowers etc) will eventually reach the atmosphere and ocean, much of it as carbon. The quantity of this plant-based waste is so More books every written, Douglas Adams (Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy) fictionalises scientists that task a supercomputer ‘Deep Thought’ to answer the ultimate question of life, the universe and everything. Seven and a half million years later, they gather around Deep Thought and press it for an answer. To which Deep Thought replies “You’re really not going to like it”. After copious demands from the scientists, Deep Thought simply says … “Forty-two”, adding “I checked it very thoroughly … and that quite definitely is the answer.”
Deep Thought could just so easily have answered ‘the Charismatic Oomperla’.
The questions we believe we need an answer to, are rarely the right questions at all. Especially when the answers simply create more confusion. We’re triggering the wrong part of our brain, priming it with irrelevancy and overloading it with chaotic details … no wonder we’re confused!
The problem, as Deep Thought subsequently says is “that you’ve never actually known what the question is” and that “… once you do know what the question actually is, you’ll know what the answer means.”
So, instead of wanting to give the fish a name, why not start looking at what it’s doing? Try not to think too hard about this. Just observe silently and let that sink in. What happens is that you start to see patterns in the world around. Fish become familiar and you begin to develop your own understanding. Lessons from nature reveal themselves to you.
Rewilding (healing) the mind
When you learn to do this, it’s quite intoxicating. Because what happens over time, is answers start to reveal themselves to you. You have these lightbulb moments where your brain pieces together the parts of what you’re seeing into patterns – you probably remember this when you were a kid. The sensation of suddenly working something out for yourself? Often this happens at night when you’re asleep. The subconcious and unconscious parts of your mind create a modelThe process, either mathematically or in the human brain, of creating an internal version of something that we can refer to, to better understand how it functions and our place within. Scientific modelling is where we take the best knowledge we have and build a version of what will happen, if we assume certain parameters. For example, we might model More of the world you’ve seen and spit out realisations you’re not even aware of, until the time comes.
Once you start doing this, you might to see the world as a single functioning living unit in which you exist and share a role with other animals.
Usually within 3-4 few days I see a transformation on my trips. For the rest of the time everyone immerses themselves and becomes so intoxicated with the thrill of it, they forget the detail and their minds start to rewild.
Being in nature throws the parts of your mind that don’t matter as much, into oblivion. It exposes you to thoughts and feelings you’re not used to, which challenges you in unexpected ways. This isn’t just whimsy. It’s absolutely key to our personal health and therefore, economic prosperity. It’s a process we have to unlock inside ourselves and it can only be done through connection with nature. Once that starts to happen, we begin to find the answers to many of our environmental problems.
All hail the Charismatic Oomperla and its role in rewilding your mind.
Come and see me talk at the Willy Lit Festival this weekend
